By 
Et tu, eFuse. The Motorola Droid X has just received a taste of big things to come, as Android hacker Birdman has succesfully pushed a custom recovery image onto the handset. With this move, the Droid X has crossed over from the realm of what-if to an almost reality full of nandroid backups and custom ROMs. The procedure used isn’t for the faint of heart or new to root, but we’re sure it will be a matter of time before easier methods are cooked up to get inside the software of the X.
“Using a hack discovered by the folks who’ve done all the work on the Milestone, birdman has booted a custom recovery on his handset. The process is labor-intensive and dangerous if you’re not prepared to recover from a bricked device (and technically this bricks the device since you can’t reboot into Android at this moment), but it’s a sucessful proof of concept.
Right now he’s working on getting ADB up so we can further investigate what it will take to get a fully functional recovery working (that will also allow reboot back into Android).
From there the focus will move to a more robust recovery and discovery if/how we can do Nandroids and/or write a new /System image (like Froyo).”
As you can see from the above doing anything worthwhile is still a bit of a long shot, but they’re getting there. Some interesting things should be coming out of the development community over the next few weeks in regards to the Droid X. And many said it couldn’t be done.
[Alldroid via Droid-Life]
It isn’t as impressive as you seem to think – he just did what Milestone guys did before. Still it’s a loooooong way to go – you all think if recovery can be ran on device then it means custom roms, nandroid etc. are almost there? You’re wrong :(
I still say it can’t be done if the rumored 2048 encryption is alive and kicking on the phone. This is a step in the direction Motorola SAID we can get to. You can load a custom recovery, but it’s just “like” a brick. The recovery is on there and..omg the phone is “bricked”. Progression will be slooooooooooooow but hopes are high.
I was really excited reading this right up until I read you cannot boot the device and for all intensive purposes its bricked :/ I’m assuming they can reflash the original software to de-brick it but I don’t really see this as huge progress. Glad to see it is indeed being worked on and the e-fuse is getting a run for its money.
Hack on
@BBW “all intents and purposes”
And at least nobody’s giving up yet. I doubt I’ll ever root my X, but it’s nice to see people working on it in case the need ever arises.
@gobluefoot: rooting and flashing working custom ROM are 2 different things people, start separating these. Rooting is easy, it’s done for every Android phone. Flashing working custom ROM’s – now that is something completely different, and that’s what is what is not working yet on Milestone, Droid X and will probably not work on Droid 2 either.
One thing I don’t understand with the whole encryption thing is: Can’t someone just get a motorola person to cough up the key?
@andrew,
Exactly!! I’m just waiting for that disgruntle ex-employee to spill the beans…
man i am glad to see this. if this is done i will gladly purchase an x.
but i keep seeing people saying that the x is “too big for my taste/hands”
man these people must have little pussy hands if a half an inch is suddenly too big compared to their nexus or incredible.
ive played with my friends droid x several times and it feels nice and fits in my pocket very nicely. creates less of a bulge than an iphone 3gs… (dont know about iphone 4)
Wouldn’t any update that Motorola puts out there have the key in it?
@andrew
Not likely. I’m a Motorola employee working with the Android line and I don’t even have any idea how to get the key. For development, all engineers get signing privileges that only work on their development phone(s). Very, very few people actually have access to what would be needed.
Maybe only a select few have access to the key. Sort of how only a handful of peopke know the formula for goretex and coke.
That would be amazing.
I’m very happy and grateful to those that are working on this as i just retired my droid 1 for a new shiny droid x i already have it rooted and overclocked to 1.2Gh but i want custom roms!!